Wonder Man, Review: The Superhero Who Wanted to Be an Actor

The recently concluded holidays were accompanied by the somewhat surprising arrival of the first official teaser for Avengers: Doomsday, the next major piece of the MCU and (probably) a last-ditch effort to bring the Marvel Cinematic Universe back to its relevance levels of a few years ago. However, this is not the final act of the Marvel cine-television Universe for 2025. Today, Disney+ subscribers will see Wonder Man, an eight-episode TV series starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and featuring the return of Sir Ben Kingsley to the MCU.

The Plot of Wonder Man

Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is one of many hopeful actors who go from audition to audition, waiting for Los Angeles to give them their long-awaited big break. Simon, it must be said, doesn't do much to help his luck, or perhaps he does too much: his ability to get under the skin of a character to the point of requiring continuous adjustments to the script and set doesn't seem to be very successful in the Studios. The turning point seems to come when he accidentally meets (by chance?) Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley) in a semi-deserted cinema. Chatting with the man who once played the Mandarin (remember Iron Man 3?), Simon discovers that the famous director Von Kovak (Zlatko Buri) is working on a modern remake of a classic from his childhood, Wonder Man, a role he has dreamed of playing since he was a child. 

Wonder Man Doesn't Break Through in Hollywood

Trying to trace a trajectory of the MCU based on recent productions is always very complicated, mainly for two reasons: the first is the frequent changes of direction dependent on external factors that change the cards on the table at least a couple of times a year; the second is the long post-COVID production tail that led Marvel Studios to reschedule, postpone, and fit series and films into a different calendar than originally planned. Based on what has been seen in the last two products of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, namely Thunderbolts, Ironheart and this latest Wonder Man, it would seem that there is an intention to bring a part of the MCU back to Earth, in the most literal sense of the term. 

Even in the case of Wonder Man, in fact, the events told in the eight episodes start from roots firmly planted in the ground: a well-defined and recognizable setting, which becomes an integral part of the imaginary in which the story is immersed, and many real, concrete sets, with a limited use of CGI (at least as far as perceivable) only to what is necessary. The reference is to series like The Bear, where the city in which the protagonists move is not just a backdrop, but a living, real, pulsating, and problematic environment that conditions the lives of those who share its spaces. The intention seems (for now, anyway) to use the series to tell smaller, more intimate, more personal stories that can show what happens at street level in a world where beings with divine powers move. And to tell a story about cinema, there is no better city in the world than Los Angeles. 

Moreover, Hollywood has a long history of productions through which it has told what happens where films are made: American cinema likes to talk about itself. Wonder Man fully fits into this genre that plays with the idiosyncrasies of agents, screenwriters, directors, and all other big-screen professionals, but unfortunately, it does so without having much to add. It's never a good approach to evaluate a product based on what it could or should have been, but after almost 20 years since the first historic Iron Man, it was reasonable to think that the MCU was ready to be a bit ironic about itself, to stage all those clichés that abound in discussions about it, perhaps even just to exorcise them.

Instead, the superhero cinema machine that emerges from Wonder Man is a rather generic reproduction, similar to many others already seen in other films or series, but without any dose of self-irony or polish, which is the secret to the success of products like The Studio (or our own still appreciated Boris). The only spark is the figure of Von Kovak, a fictional director of serious works who decides to dedicate himself to a comic book movie: I would like to think that the character was conceived as a way to laugh at the bizarre and often unfounded statements of MCU directors who cyclically announce that they were inspired by timeless masterpieces of the seventh art to stage their battles of costumed guys; but in practice, he is perceived more as a somewhat grotesque and over-the-top portrayal of serious directors and nothing more (and since the production timings fit, the fact that the context made me think of The Brutalist might not be a coincidence). 

If in the case of Ironheart the city in which the story moved served to put themes and problems on the table to reflect on (albeit without ever digging too deep, we are still in the MCU), the Hollywood of Wonder Man is a wasted opportunity. Just as it is interesting to discover how the galactic events of superheroes influence the lives of ordinary people who walk with their feet on the ground, it would have been interesting to discover how cinema in the MCU reacted to the presence of costumed beings who decide the fate of the world with punches. Instead, beyond the characterization of agents, actors, producers, and laborers according to comedy stereotypes, all that remains of the relationship between cinema and superheroes is a long flashback that explains the reasons for the Studios' policies on the presence of superhumans on sets. 

It's a shame that Wonder Man struggles to truly connect our Simon Williams's powers to his inner conflict, even after revealing to the viewer why they must be hidden. It could even be a good starting point on which to build something and add layers of depth to the character, to whom Yahya Abdul-Mateen II gives a more than decent performance, and for whose debut even a high-caliber actor like Ben Kingsley was brought in. Instead, in all probability, Simon Williams's future will involve a cameo in the ensemble action of Doomsday and then who knows. Hollywood can sometimes be truly ruthless.